The Engineering Materials Development Institute, EMDI, based in Akure, the Ondo State capital, is a unit of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), a federal government agency which is leading the way in engineering development in Nigeria. In this interview with Soni Daniel, the director of EMDI, Dr. Samuel Gbenga Olusunle, outlines the potentialities and challenges of the institute.
What has been your experience as the director of the institute?
Well, with God nothing is impossible. I have not been here that long. I assumed duty here as the head of Engineering Materials Development Institute, EMDI, Akure, a few months ago, precisely on March 30.? Before now, I used to be a Director, Engineering Infrastructure at the agency and also a Deputy Director in the Director-General’s office in Abuja; so I was wearing a double cap there at the headquarters. There were several assignments that the DG would make me come here to oversee even though there were people here to have done them. I did my PhD work here, using the facilities of this institute; and I have been very close to this institution all along. So I am not totally new to this setting. Whatever it is, the fact remains that I have not been on ground like now. So far, I have carried out an assessment of everything here and what I’m trying to do now is to build on the foundation and the legacies of Professor Adewoye, who founded this place.
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What are the challenges you are grappling with?
Of course, there are some challenges which I am facing but I believe there are challenges I will refer to as general challenges. We need adequate funding to grow the place and meet the expectations of the people. At the same time, I know I have come to meet very rich-in-knowledge staff on the ground. Another aspect is facilities. There are adequate and good facilities here on ground to work with but some are not yet fully commissioned. As soon as funds run in, we will get some of them properly installed, and make sure too that staff get busy in all the units, especially development. We will equally try to see how we can get our stakeholders -? I mean the states around us – to partner with us. By the time we meet our stakeholders, we will be able to see what is required to meet their needs and how we can contribute to what they are doing. We intend to do this so as to generate revenue and get the place running optimally. The EMDI is strategically located such that we have to service some educational institutions around us. We have the Federal University, Akure, the Owo Polytechnic, Obafemi Awolowo University and others. By the time we embark on this, we expect that our hands will be full but we definitely require funds to be able to do all that.
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Are you satisfied with the state of facilities at EMDI?
Well, I have requested that all the papers concerning the inventory of things here be presented to me. About the machines on ground, some of them are working optimally, some need maintenance, some are partially installed but, like I told you earlier, once funds are released, we will start to make sure all machines are fully functional. I would like? to make sure that everything is up and running so that we will not have any challenge. One machine can delay what? we want to do, so I will want to make sure everything is up and running so that we will not have a challenge of saying we lack so and so facility.
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What level of patronage does EMDI enjoy in Nigeria?
We enjoy patronage from other research institutes around us and from the eastern part of the country. Sometimes, even ordinary polishing, some universities don’t have the facilities for it, and they come here to make use of ours. But we normally charge little fees for such services just to keep the equipment running, because some times, budget may not be adequate to do that. Another area where the institute is getting patronage is on industrial training from students. When I assumed office here, I was presented with documents to sign in respect of this, from students around here, especially from Federal University, Akure, Ondo State Polytechnic, Owo, Obafemi Awolowo University and the rest.
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How much does the institution really need to function maximally?
Well, it will actually be difficult to tell you in categorical terms how much is needed here because I am just assuming this position, and I do not have a picture of how much they have been having here to run this place, so until I get to know, it will be difficult to say I will need this or that amount of money to run EMDI. But all I know is that we really need money for consumables. I am not going to talk about personnel, over-head cost and all that, but equipment and maintenance. If you have one equipment today, you may wake up tomorrow to discover that you need a newer one for efficiency. For example, when I came here, I discovered that we did not have non-destructive testing machines. I would like to set up a unit for that so as to be able to test equipment without destroying anything. This will complement the destructive testing unit that we have here. The industrial furnace here has only been used once and I want to ensure that it is used continually so as to generate revenue for EMDI, just as we will want to use it to build capacity, because knowledge is power.
How comfortable are you seeing machines that would have been ordinarily put to use lying idle?
Well, I am not comfortable because if you have staffers that are idle, there will be more problems on your hands. The only way you can engage everybody is to have jobs on the ground for them to do. But we will do our best to make this place a household name in this country. Like I said earlier, I am going to immediately swing into action by going round to the stakeholders, because I value everybody’s cooperation. I have to tell everybody what I can do; it is like marketing the institute and creating better awareness among the stakeholders that are close by. I will also rally round some colleagues who are around to make them feel a sense of belonging with a view to proffering solutions to what our society need, because no person has? monopoly of knowledge. If I get this assistance here and there and get them connected to what I have as my own blueprint, we are going to move this place forward. I am going to go around with a view to ensuring that we get this place engaged as a consultancy, to see how we could get people in training, that is, manpower development and capacity building. As a research institute, we are going to ensure the staff also put pen on paper with regards to what they have done by preparing journals. We will be doing development of products as well as reporting our research institute. All these are meant to move this place forward and get more support for the institute.
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Does EDMI have any breakthrough it can point at?
Without products, we cannot make the desired impact. The rotary furnace in the workshop is a product of this institute and I make bold to say here that over 100 mini-foundries that exist in this country today are from this institute, courtesy of the former Director-General, Professor Adewoye. He had the idea, we made one and it was successful and he made a proposal to ETF and they bought into it and funded the project. That is our major product. NASENI has been producing many things, but they are not in the market because people are not conscious of them. But all of this is about to change because the present leadership of NASENI is poised to make our products known. For instance, the eight-brick making machine we have developed can hit the market soon. If our people buy into it, instead of making one block at a time, they can produce eight at once. That is the kind of thing we are doing.
This technology can go a long way in developing the small and medium enterprises and getting more Nigerians actively engaged in business.? Don’t forget that our job is not to hold on to the technology or whatever we make here, but to ensure that, after developing technology, we will sit down with the industries and the SMEs and develop people who can take them over from us. An example is the rotary furnace we developed many years back, which has now been taken over by some companies. We have to set the pace in development.
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